BA breakdown

Gordon Barkaway, London SE13

12:01AM BST 21 Jul 2003

Sir - I had the misfortune to spend seven hours in the departure lounge at Heathrow Terminal 1 on Saturday. During that time, only two announcements were made by BA in relation to the delays, and these referred simply to "operational difficulties".

It was only when I spoke to my brother on the telephone that I became aware that "operational difficulties" meant unofficial industrial action was taking place. No announcements were made of flight cancellations: the electronic indicator board simply changed from "please wait" to "cancelled", without any further information.

It seemed to me that as soon as the cause for the delays became known in the departure terminal, any BA staff who were not already on strike disappeared from sight. BA made no attempt at all to arrange new flights or accommodation. We were left entirely on our own to attempt the recovery of our checked baggage. There was no one from BA in attendance at any time to offer assistance or advice in Terminal 1, or in the baggage recovery hall.

And we will now, no doubt, be forced to jump through hoops to try to get some sort of compensation from BA. The World's Favourite Airline? Not mine.